Rekka Saionji

Name: Rekka “Jikan” Saionji

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Grade: 12th Grade (Senior)

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Making sushi at Saionji's Gift, fishing, hunting, girlfriend Dawne Jiang, Prohibition America history, sociology, craft/tool making

Appearance: Rekka's height tends not to follow your typical stereotype for an Okinawan male; being roughly around 5 feet, 11 inches and weighing in at 192 lbs. Spending a balance of time inside studying for the military academy and helping gather the ingredients to maintain the Saionji Sushi Bar's extensive menu allows his skin tone to retain its slightly tan hue.

To further break the stereotypical mold, Rekka’s muscular features is not what one would call “ripped” or over muscular, but more well built. A mixture of strengthened arms and leg tissue from the demanding work of a fisherman, combined with a controlled spreading of that mass gained from hunting in the wild. This results in a visually balanced young male that is neither top nor bottom heavy; and a mixture of a city and country person. Perhaps the only blemish on his physique would be the large scar that spans from in between his middle and ring finger, to the elbow on his right arm.

Due to his hobbies, Rekka rarely cares about making his hair presentable and hides the messy look with a tied bandana. As a result, he tends to have a classic 'hat-hair' feel for his dark brown locks.

He has a narrower face build than most, sporting a pointier jaw and a less defined cheekbone. Nose protrusion is slightly more, and the width is small enough to not become the main focal point of the face. His eyes are unmistakably Asian, being of a single fold and almost looking like it’s always closed. The above is especially true when it starts to smile and earned him the nickname, “Kaji the Smiling Cat.”

Rekka's choice of clothing is most unusual for someone of his age and family profession. He prefers to approach in a more classical Prohibtion-America clothing, yet still practical to the tasks that are required of him during daily life. His most common set of clothing consists of matching color scheme of either: khaki,tan, leather brown or black, white, and gray. Long slacks (usually khaki or jet black) are held in place with a combination of two belts with two steel clasps dangling. The clasps are utilized when he goes with his dad on fishing trips or vegetable harvesting; meant to cling onto tool packs. Cotton, hand-woven socks cover his feet inside of a blucher-style hiking shoes; casually made from black polished leather. The bottom of the heel has deeper grooves than a typical hiking boot, for added heel support and aids in uneven terrain climbing.

Upper body style continues with a white collar, cuff, cotton long sleeve shirt that nicely hugs his figure while keeping a steady flow of air coming; usually held neatly together with a black neck tie securing around the base line. On top of the shirt is a dress vest that follows one of the two color schemes, being in a three button fashion. The vest stops just before the waistline, with excess tucked in with the white shirt. Depending on the weather, he'll wear a black/tan trench coat that travels down to his knee caps. The coat he sports uses about a 1/16 thickness leather that has been treated weekly with Scotch-guard to further prevent over absorption from water. Having the trench coat at that thickness combines an ideal weight when soaked, while also helping speed up the drying process. Inside is lined with woven strands of kappa to provide comfort and warmth in times of need.

His image is complete with the ever present black or tan fedora hat with a crescent moon emblem stitching on top, a present from a shopkeeper before they moved to Minnesota State. It seems it never leaves his head and earned him a reputation for not being seen with his head exposed at school. However, rumors did state that Dawne managed to get a sneak at it.

On days that he wouldn’t be wearing the typical attire, you can find Rekka sporting clothing similar to a tank-top, long pants, weaved slippers, and a cloth bandana tied around his head (which is also worn in substitute for his fedora while in a school classroom). He tends to wear this type of clothing when working at the docks or gathering vegetation near the house.

Biography: Transferring from Mt. Edgecumbe High in Sitka, Alaska as an incoming junior, Rekka Saionji arrives to Bayview Secondary little ways before the term began. Coming from a lifestyle that is uncommon to most teenagers, he was raised to appreciate the gifts of both land and sea; taking only what was necessary to live and always return the favor.

The only son of Eishun and Alaale Saionji, his family spent many days gathering wild flora and materials they needed to operate a daily life. Some particular incidents would be his mother teaching him animal movement habits such as the shape of grass blades, learning to see which herbs are safe to pick, to his father showing him how to watch the water's flow and detect if there are nearby fish swimming. While not exactly primal, as there were modern comforts such as a car, a refrigerator, and a radio in the house, the Saionji's relied more upon the gifts of nature to sustain their life.

Rekka had his first hunt at the age of seven, when he and his mother went into a frost laden plain to gather some fresh fowl meat for dinner later on that week. It was his first time actually going to take a creature down and the thought rattled him somewhat. The thought of killing affected him enough to where the birds heard the excessive rustling and flew away before Rekka's father could release an arrow. Seeing her son wonder if it was right, she confided to the boy that nature was not always at peace. That sometimes, death must be brought in order for life to continue. Rekka didn't understand until his mother plucked a wild flower from a nearby tree. While it was very pretty and smelled nice to Rekka, his mother said that by doing so, he had killed an offspring of the tree. Seeing this, Rekka felt a little twinge inside that calmed his nerves down and began to understand what it was his mother tried to explain.

After that event, Rekka would spend the following years after the school day finished in one of two places. If not out with his parents, you would find the young man running about the town square. To satisfy a growing curiosity as to how things interacted with each other, he began watching people socialize and asked questions about the reasons why they did what they did. While it came off as a nuisance to the teenage population of the town, adults and local shopkeepers were delighted at such an innocent curiosity and began telling him their take of an answer. He gain a variety of knowledge that went from: how bodily gestures could tell how a person felt that day, to something so strange as telling how a person is by shaking hands. His classmates found it strange that he was smiling while pouncing from spot to spot, thus being called Kaji the Smiling Cat. Partially for him having very cat-like features on his face, but also because like a cat, he seemed to just move wherever he felt and simply stood there to watch. Kaji was created by taking the final two letters of his first and last name.

Rekka grew both mentally and physically faster than most would his age with his active lifestyle. At the age of 13, his father felt he was ready to introduce his son to what it was like fishing in the waters of Alaska. After agreeing only to take him within visual distance of the port, Rekka and his father went out on a small fishing vessel and went straight to work. From learning the difference between star and port, to deciphering what the waves spoke, Rekka would go fishing with his father 2nd weekend of every month.

All was going very well until on a fishing trip, the motorized pulley jammed while the line was reeling back in the catch. Letting instinct take over instead of reason, Rekka grabbed a hold of the rope jamming the flow and attempted to pull it free. His pulling caused the rope to barely wiggle out between the gears and the pulley freed itself. However, due to it being shutdown during the jam for as a safety precaution, the netting attached to the rope Rekka held fell quickly back to the ocean floor and dragged the boy close to the edge. He managed to let go before going overboard, but not soon enough to prevent his right arm from getting deeply gashed in the pulley's gears. Rekka's father immediately returned to port and had his son transported to the local hospital for treatment. During this time, after seeing the blood he shed, Rekka realized how such dangers were always present and can easily end a person's life without them knowing.

In about 2 years, the gash became nothing more than a scar and the numerous of doctor therapy helped Rekka regain functionality to a once crippled arm. Around this time, his parents decided to start up a business to bring a little bit of extra income; and one that would show some of the wilderness's treasures.

It is with this knowledge that his mother and father would open up a sushi bar, using only the hand-picked and caught ingredients that the Alaskan wilderness had to offer. Since food gathering was time consuming, the shop would only open Sunday through Wednesday. The latter half of the week was ideal to either visit farms for produce, or to gather protein and herbs they were lacking. Saionji's Seaside Catch as it was called, became a quick hit for reasonably priced sushi made by his father and delectable baked goods and salads made by his mother. Rekka would not only learn the ins and outs of foraging for food from a young age, but how to prepare the very same dishes the customers ate. Many days after school were spent coming home to prepare the ingredients to be cooked, or to go acquire them in general. Rekka worked up the ladder of culinary skills for the family restaurant: starting simple with peeling potatoes, to extracting the beans from vanilla pods, to learning how to prepare stir-fried vegetables, til he eventually graduate to scaling and fileting the caught fish for the sushi.

Time consuming as it was, Rekka's curiosity had no qualms absorbing his family's knowledge like a sponge and putting it into practice with diligent practice.

Little ways before finishing his sophomore year at Mt. Edgecumbe High, his parents felt a need to try and expand their successful restaurant. They also felt it would be a good experience for their son to be exposed to a not-so-remote setting, noticing that he sparingly attended social events of any sort while they lived in Alaska. What particularly disturbed them was that Rekka didn't seem that phased for leaving the town outside of missing a few shopkeepers and the wilderness. After finding a good deal on housing in the Bayview area of Minnesota, the Saionji's closed up their shop and bought tickets to head on over to the land of the royal 48. A few days before the departure, as Rekka went around saying his few goodbyes, an older hat peddler came out and gave him two, vintage looking fedora hats. Confused, yet interested in the design, the peddler said it was handmade using only materials unique to the town and that he wanted Rekka to keep it. A small token to remember his home by.

On the plane ride to Minnesota, Rekka’s fascination into prohibition era history was born when the movie, The Youngest Godfather played. What caught his attention was when the hat the old peddler gave him showed up, and how the people who moved the story seemed to sport it. The fashion, the inner workings of a lifestyle completely foreign to him, and how such a young person made a difference took Rekka by surprise. He made it a point that when they got to Bayview, to update his wardrobe to match the new fashion sense.

Adjusting to the more urbanized Bayview took a little while longer than expected, especially when it came to school. Rekka was used to going to school where everybody minded their own business for the most part, usually because it was a lot smaller and students had family issues to take care of. He was adored by his teachers for being very polite and punctual for meetings, though when social events took place...Rekka faltered. Having grown up mainly around older people and nature, the many 'fads' and 'social cliches' of the city simply didn't make sense to him. This caused many of his classmates to regard him as dependable, but more along a class representative. Good for talking business, just not the first pick when it came to casual matters.

That didn't bother Rekka too much other than finding school slightly more of a chore, until he met Dawne Jiang. Seeing that she too didn't really get a long with the crowd, and that she was also in a fair bit of his classes, he started to talk with her about random topics. Ranging from “How stupid jocks can be?!”, to the latest anime and manga, to simply people watching, it was a moment during the day that he could relax and cut loose with a person. He could show his sarcastic jokes, poke fun at Dawne's 'fetishes', and overall...enjoy being a teenager for once. Rekka felt a growing attachment towards his first “young” friend in Bayview. Apparently, Dawne felt the same as well and approached him towards the end of their junior year. Like something out of a shoujo (young girl) manga, Dawne blurted out her confession when they went to go eat lunch under a tree. Rekka was taken aback and accepted, remarking that he couldn't tell if Dawne's face was beet red from embarassment, or anger due to the way she kept saying “I L-LIKE YOU D-DAMMIT!!” That earned him a punch or two.

Advantages: Having been raised for most of his life with having to harvest food from the sea and forest, Rekka is physically very fit and aware of how these environments can help him achieve his task. He has also studied in the field of sociology, granting him an insight and knowledge of visual cues as to how people interact with others for various reasons. Most of the tools that the Saionji family used to procure their ingredients are handmade, with the techniques passed down to their young. Rekka has gained this knowledge and can craft such items like (but not limited to): arrows, weaving a net, plant fiber extraction, stone crafts. These tools are then put to use with the hunting on the sea and the forest has tempered his nerves and senses, making him more keen to noticing little habits or sounds in the area.

Disadvantages: Due to the accident that happened on the fishing trip while he lived in Alaska, there is a lingering nerve problem located in his right wrist and extends to the index finger. If he strains that arm by over exertion, exposing it to moist & cold temperatures for extended periods of time, or is hit with a strong enough impact (like a hit from a bat swing), the result is that section tends to lock-up and become paralyzed for hours. In worst case scenarios, the lock down can last for several of days. Rekka will be unable to clench his right hand until it loosens up. He answers almost immediately to Dawne Jiang, and trusts her without a second question. Rekka is very naive to how firearms would work and their existence outside of movies or comics. Mainly due to his family’s upbringing of him in the way to gathering their food, he was taught that shooting an animal with a gun taints the meat with the iron and gunpowder. He's never given the weapon a second thought outside of being a novelty entertainment tool. Since most of his life was spent either with an older crowd or with his parents, Rekka has a hard time conversing and relating to those of his age or younger. Sometimes he will inadvertedly speak as if he were far older than his colleagues and that may offend some people.

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Designated Number: Male Student no. 100

Designated Weapon: Skorpion vz.61 (x5 clips [capacity 10 7.65x17mm rounds])

Conclusion: Looks like our lucky one hundred got one of the better guns in the game! It's a shame he's unlikely to use it. Seems like Nature Boy is going to be too busy trying to sustain himself off the land to actually play the game, so maybe we'll get lucky and someone with bigger balls will pick up his weapon. I can dream...

'The above biography is as written by KARAS. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: KARAS, T-Fox

Kills: None

Killed By: R.J. Lowe

Collected Weapons: Skorpion vz.61 (taken by Dawne Jiang)

Allies: Dawne Jiang

Enemies: R.J. Lowe

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation: Well, it seems I had B100 pegged all wrong! Not that it did him any good, of course. Should've just left the gun and taken the cannoli!

Memorable Quotes:  "If ya' got any last words you wanna say, say em' now. Cause tonight? You're gonna be sleepin' with da' fishes." - Rekka, failing to endear himself to the angry mute.

Other/Trivia

 * Rekka was adopted by T-Fox after he went inactive under his original hander.
 * Rekka's final quote was actually partially inspired by one of the voice packs for the game "Hedgewars".

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Rekka, in chronological order.

Pre-Game:
 * Turning the Clock, Catching a Hand
 * Timely Extension of the Gift

V4:
 * Death is not a Game
 * What She Came For
 * Just Close Your Eyes
 * The Various Downsides of Becoming "Paranoid as Balls"
 * It Knows Nothing of Whim

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Rekka Saionji. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''


 * So you know, Trav, commiting homicide has never been so pleasurable as it was with you. - Stark


 * Death No. 69, I think. An important milestone. Because it's quarter of the way through. - General Goose
 * Rekka's a tough one. He had some shaky scenes in early game, and was hindered a bit by his attachment to Dawne. When she died, he sort of lost purpose, and then when he was adopted, he went totally crazy. That's really my biggest issue; Rekka's descent into gangsterdom felt more like craziness for its own sake, and his plot was pretty abortive after that. A good fight/death came out of it, but I feel like Rekka works a lot better encountered as a threat through R.J.'s story than by actually following his. - MurderWeasel